"I think," said the Hatter, "that before we go any further we would better show Miss Alice our Munic.i.p.al Poetry Factory. The whistle will blow very shortly and our Divine Afflatus Dynamo will shut down, so if she is to see that feature of our work now is the time to do it.

"Yes," said the March Hare, "although the office is in some confusion owing to your recent Munic.i.p.al Order Number 20,367 making _Alabazam_ rhyme with _Mulligatawney_, and extending the number of lines in the munic.i.p.al quatrains from four to twenty-three. The employees are finding considerable difficulty in making twenty-three-line quatrains and at least half the force have gone home suffering from acute attacks of brainstormitis."

"It'll do em good," laughed the Hatter. "A good brain storm may result in a few of them being struck. Come along, Miss Alice, and we'll show you our City Poets at work."

"I don't think I understand," said Alice. "What is a city poet?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "LARGER MEASURE THAN WAS THE CUSTOM"]

"He bears the same relation to Munic.i.p.al Poetry that a White Wing bears to the Street Cleaning Department," explained the Hatter. "Two years ago the City took over all the Verse-making enterprises of Blunderland, appointed a Munic.i.p.alaureat, otherwise a Commissioner of Public Verse, and started him along with a Department. He employs 16,743 poets who provide all the poetry that is consumed by our people. It has resulted in great good for everybody. Poetry is cheaper by eight cents a line than it used to be, and, as you may have guessed from what the March Hare has just said, we give larger measure than was the custom under the private ownership of _Pegasus_. Quatrains have been increased from four lines to twenty-three, and the old stingy fourteen-line sonnet has been enlarged to fifty-four lines. We have also pa.s.sed an ordinance requiring that poems shall say what they mean, which is a vast improvement on the old private control method whereunder anybody was allowed to write rhymes which n.o.body could understand--like that thing of Miss Arethusa Spink's, for instance, called Aspiration. Remember that?"

"I don't think I ever heard it," said Alice.

"Well it went this way," said the Hatter, and striking a graceful att.i.tude he recited the following lines called:

ASPIRATION

_By Arethusa Spink_

Down by the purple opalescent sea, Flung like a ribbon limp athwart the sky, A rose lay blooming on the restless lea, While sundry birds came chattering sweetly by.

'Twas then my soul that all too long had slept, Awoke from out its iridescent nap,

crept Down where the pink-cheeked crocus blossoms From out fair Nature's over-bounteous lap, And cried aloud "Alas! What hath betode?

What dream is this that like the ambient brook Forbids the mind to face the solemn goad And know itself forsook!"

The Hatter paused.

"Well?" said Alice, slightly puzzled.

"That's all there was to it," said the Hatter. "It was printed in one of our Magazines and within forty-eight hours the ambulance from the Insane Asylum was called out 737 times by people who had gone crazy trying to find out what it meant. It capped the climax. I called a special meeting of the Common Council to take the matter up purely as a matter of public health, and before I went to bed that night they had pa.s.sed and I had signed an Act giving the control of the Verse Industry to the City and taking it out of the hands of irresponsible, unlicensed independent poets.

"And a good job it was too," said the March Hare.

"And you chose one of the best poets in town for the Commissioner, I suppose?" suggested Alice.

"No we didn't," said the Hatter. "I didn't want any Moonshine in a City Department and no poet is a good business man. I picked out a very successful Haberdasher in the Sixth Ward for the delicate business of organising the Department, and he has done most excellent work. We found that just as a first cla.s.s confectioner made a splendid manager of our gas plant, and a successful Hoki-Poki merchant had the required push to keep our trolley systems going, so the Haberdasher had the precise kind of genius to manage the poets. He won't stand any nonsense from them, and any poem that he can't understand is immediately thrown into the Civic Waste-Basket, taken to the Munic.i.p.al Ferry and used for fuel to run the boats. I guess we burn nineteen tons of refuse verse a day, don't we, Alderman?"

"About that--on the average," said the March Hare. "Sometimes it gets as high as twenty tons and occasionally it falls off to sixteen--but using these rejected ma.n.u.scripts in place of coal has reduced the loss on the Ferry about thirty-eight dollars a year in real money."

"How much is that in bonds?" asked Alice slyly.

"O--let's see," said the Hatter, his face getting very red, "well--I should say on a basis of 43-1/3% to one, thirty-eight dollars would, come to about $97,347.83 in third debenture ten per cent. certificates, exclusive of the cost of printing, advertising, and the number we give away as sample copies."

"Quite a saving," said Alice.

"Yes," said the Hatter. "We save all we can. Economy in real money is our watchword. We never spend a cent where a bond will serve the purpose."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "GREETED BY THE COMMISSIONER, THE HABERDASHER"]

By this time Alice and her hosts had reached the building occupied by the Department of Public Verse, and upon entering its s.p.a.cious doorway the party were greeted by the Commissioner, the Haberdasher, to whom Alice was promptly introduced. He reminded her very forcibly of her old acquaintance Bill the Lizard, but she was not sure enough on this point to recall their previous meeting when she had so tactlessly kicked him up through the chimney flue of the Wonderland Cottage.

"Well, Mr. Commissioner," said the Hatter, "how are you getting along?"

"Pretty well, Mr. Mayor," replied the Commissioner. "We've just finished the six line couplet for the new Chewing Gum Bonds."

"Good," said the Hatter. "How does it go?"

"Rather neatly I think," said the Commissioner, and he read the following:

We promise to pay This bond some day If of the stuff We've got enough.

And if we haven't, pray don't despond, For we'll pay it off with another bond.

"Fine," said the Hatter. "You strike a very lofty note in that. And how do the new Limericks work?"

"We've finished number 3907 of series XZV," said the Commissioner. "I'll send for Wiggins who wrote it and let him read it to you himself."

A pressure of an electric b.u.t.ton brought the smiling Wiggins into the office.

"Wiggins, the Mayor would like to hear that new Limerick of yours,"

said the Commissioner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT RUNS THIS WAY, YOUR HONOUR"]

"Thanky sir," said Wiggins. "It runs this way, your honour.

"There was an old lady named Jane Who sat on a fence at Schoharie.

A rooster came by And crew like the deuce But Jane never scared for a cent."

"That's great," said the Hatter. "Don't you think so, Miss Alice?"

"Why yes," said Alice, "but--does it rhyme?"

"Perfectly," replied the Hatter, "that is, under our system. When we organised this Department to facilitate business and avoid the waste of time looking for rhymes we legalised such rhymes as Schoharie and cent and by and deuce. By that act we found that where one man could only turn out 800 Limericks a day under the old system, any ablebodied-poet can write 3,000 in the same number of hours. That's very good, Wiggins," he added turning to the workman. "I shall recommend the Commissioner to promote you to an Inspectorship in the Sonnet works."

"Thanky sir," said the Poet, as he blushingly bowed himself out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "OUR THINKING DEPARTMENT"]

"Here," said the Commissioner, opening a door leading into a long, darkened chamber, "here, young lady, is our Thinking Department."

Alice pa.s.sed into the darkness and dimly made out a half a hundred long-haired individuals sitting in comfortable Morris chairs, their forefingers pressed hard against their brows and their eyes gazing fixedly out into s.p.a.ce.

"These men and women think the thoughts which our munic.i.p.al poetry is designed to express," the Commissioner continued. "A thought once seized by any one of them is written down upon a pad, and then taken into this next room where it is cla.s.sified and a.s.signed to the line cutters who turn out the first draft in the rough. Then when this is done it is sent to the rhyming room where the lines are made to end in rhymes, and finally it goes to the Polishing room where the poem is made ready for publication."

"It's a wonderful system," said the Hatter. "It not only improves the quality of our poetry, but in campaign times it is a great help, since we control absolutely all the campaign poetry. When I run for mayor next fall to succeed myself there won't be a single poem written on the other side."

"That ought to be a great help," said Alice.